Tuesday, October 31, 2006

So I've had Wilco recommended to me for the better half of the last decade, and somehow I've never picked up their stuff. Sometimes you need that die-hard fan friend to push you over the edge to buy the right album. I remember McSweeney's joking with "A Ghost Is Born" that it was time to break bad on Wilco, and I hadn't tuned in yet at all.

Then again, I kind of prefer the delayed-gratification approach to music listening. Let time do some sifting before you drop those dollars, and you won't end up with Escape Club's "Wild Wild West", my first-ever music purchase. Since the haunting memories of "Shake for the Sheik" of yesteryore (1988), I've hesitated before throwing money at radio hits. I didn't pick up Nirvana until years after Kurt Cobain killed himself. I didn't pick up Radiohead until about 2001, at which point I bought it all and willfully overdosed.

Some artists, however, you know you can buy awl their stuff out the gate, and timeless album or not, you'll dig it. Beck is one of these. I kind of revel in listening to his early stuff, the stuff that alienates the average ear. Like "Thunderpeel." Right through Sea Change. And even now, Guero was a trifle mechanized and soulless, and I haven't picked up The Information yet, but I dig it all because I can't wait to hear what he'll do next.

Pandora revealed to me that my album Hypocrisy in the Genius Room has much in common with Wilco's debut, A.M. Perhaps it's our shared flair for "basic rock song structures", "country influences", "punk influences", "folk influences", or even "mixed acoustic and electric instrumentation". Apparently we're "flava kin", a term I'm coining right here and now. Kinship of flavor. Flava kin. Fläavakin.

In 2000, when I recorded my debut, I was apparently more fläavakin with Honeyboy Edwards, which is cool with me. Anybody who kicks their album off with a song called "Big Fat Mama" can be my fläavakin anyday.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

This is an old song I've had sitting around for the day when somebody throws money at me to record an album. Written in the winter of 2002-3 or so. It's apropos at this moment, as I finally get down to digitizing all my vinyl that's never been re-released in digital media. Or if it has, it's impossible to find. Like the Tron soundtrack (featuring Journey's "Only Solutions"! (ick)), "Wanted!" by Davy and the Badmen (of whom, my uncle was a badman), or Dave Van Ronk's "Ragtime Jug Stompers". These are amazing albums, and the work it takes to get them onto digital, at 2-3 hours apiece, is totally worth it.

This song is something like a sookey jump in the tradition of Robert Johnson's "They're Red Hot". Only instead of being about tamales, this is about records.

I'm looking forward to recording this as a jump joint with a jazz band eventually.

Everything Sounds Better On Vinyl

I ain't gonna discuss this no moreWoman, the conversation is closedListen, man, to the matter at handThat's it, that's all, that's final

Wednesday, October 4, 2006

Last night I saw Regina Spektor at the 9:30 Club. She was amazingly good, full of energy, and the audience adored her all night long. You can really hear the antifolk in her old stuff, all kinds of stutters and jokes and ramblings that make your ears double-take. The new stuff is more polished but retains the spirit of madness. If MySpace doesn't censor it, I'll probably post a video of her singing a song with the refrain, "Someone in the next room is fucking to one of my songs."

So when you see inspiration live like Regina Spektor, you can't help but want to go write, or paint, or create or whatever you do. I wanted to post a whole new song today, but I got fixated on one I've had around since 2002. This is one of the few songs I actually wrote, played out, decided it wasn't at all right, and re-wrote a whole new song to. And unfortunately, it's now again newly topical.

In Boston, I lived across the street from a low bell-tower. My third-story window looked right over to the bells, which hammered every quarter-hour, sounding like you were curled up inside them. Strangely enough though, my ears learned to filter them out. I'd pass three hours without hearing one bell, and then suddenly one would grab my attention.

The guitar riff in this song sounds to me something like bells, in the way Blind Lemon Jefferson or others have imitated on a guitar. But the bell-tower, for Americans, is the best place to go when you've loaded up on guns and need to make a statement. Some drive their tractor into the reflecting pond on the National Mall, some take a classroom of Amish hostage, others customize their hooptie so they can aim a rifle out of the trunk. But let's be serious, the bell-tower is the moral high ground, with time on your side. It's the only way to terrorize your countrymen when you feel unjustified. Choosy maniacs choose the belltower.

Whatever way we do it, though, Americans have a thing for ritualistic hostage homicide-suicides. These things, while horrific, don't really shock anymore do they? We're a nation obsessed with guns, cinematically fantastic violence, and really fun first-person shooters in which you can change the radio station in the vehicle you just carjacked. To say nothing of the divides between rich/poor, white/black/ red/blue.

I kinda feel like these things are actually the failure of everybody. The failure of the sum total of America. And as such, it's all our problem to deal with - not because it can happen to us, but because when it does, it's our fault.

This thing needs a little more sonically, but I don't have the time to put much more on it.

Upstart Casualties

Put down the weapon, step away from the window and we'll all be goodEverybody here has got a gripe to compare and we probably couldWhat say we split a milkshake, just you and meBefore we're just another couple upstart casualties

We could sit around and watch the system break down all afternoonDon't change the station til the righteous indignation is full in bloomTake that scowl to the bell-tower, sure as can beSet your sights on some upstart casualties

The bell-tower is taking reservations tonightThat's one sour dissertation on arcade games and infamous lives

What say we split a milkshake, just you and me?Before we're just another couple upstart casualties